Summary
Institute of Soil Biology and Biochemistry of the Biology Centre CAS, České Budějovice, welcomes applications for a four-year PhD student position in soil fauna effects on soil organic matter stability.
Deadline: 1-Feb-2026
Institute of Soil Biology and Biochemistry of the Biology Centre CAS, České Budějovice, welcomes applications for a four-year PhD student position in soil fauna effects on soil organic matter stability. They are seeking a motivated individual with a strong interest in soil organic matter dynamics.
Fauna is highly abundant in soils worldwide, but their potential in regulating carbon in soil and helping mitigate climate change remains unknown, which hampers effective and sustainable management of soils in the face of global change.
This PhD project, funded by the Czech Academy of Sciences, will tackle this research gap in various experiments that will mainly focus on how earthworms, nematodes, and springtails, individually and in combination with each other, affect the proportion and formation of particulate and mineral-associated organic matter. The research will be conducted on various scales, including laboratory experiments at the Biology Centre CAS, an Ecotron experiment at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, and field experiments in the Global Change Experimental Facility of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany. The successful candidate will perform physical fractionation of soil, biomarker (amino sugars) and DNA extractions, conduct gas-chromatographic measurements, and will be involved in setting up and maintaining laboratory and field experiments.
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